Avaya vs. Shoretel 3

[jneiberger]

I'm hoping that GSmitherman will answer this.

We are currently an Avaya shop. Four of our locations have Avaya PBXs. One location has Avaya IP phones registered to the PBX at our main location. A bunch our sites are standalone systems running Comdial or ESI key systems.

We have two sites with old Comdial systems that need to be replaced soon. We want to make a move toward VoIP and we want to use those sites as a kind of pilot. We are looking at Avaya, ShoreTel, and Cisco. Each has their own advantages and disadvantages.

The biggest advantage for Avaya is that we're already an Avaya shop. The move to Avaya VoIP system-wide would not require any forklift upgrades at our major sites. The migration at any given site would also be easier because the Avaya system would continue to support our existing analog and digital sets.

However, I'm very impressed with the Shoretel system. It looks really great! If I were starting a company from scratch and needed to purchase a phone system, it would definitely be ShoreTel. However, in our case, the incumbent provider has a huge advantage. Avaya may not be the "best" system, but it may be the best fit for what we're doing.

Keep in mind that we're not talking about Avaya IP office, we're talking about a full-blown system, not the SMB product.

What do you think? If you were already an established Avaya shop with hundreds of Avaya digital and analog sets in place already, would you still make the move to ShoreTel for VoIP? Is it *that* good?

Thanks!
John

 

[jneiberger]

Avaya was not bought out by a competitor, and they weren't bought out because they were doing poorly. They were sold to a private equity group. It's not like things were going bad and they were bought out by another telecom company.

 

[aarenot]

jn,
Thanks, you made my point. Avaya was such a great buy that a private group of people decided to take the company back privately held.

 

[tech2233]

Avaya makes some really great products. The IP Office is a really good SMB system, and the CM is an amazing Enterprise product with tons of features and growth.

Unfortunately, IP Office can not be made redundant, and the CM (S8500 and S87XX) products which can be made redundant are very expensive and cumbersome to program, maintain, and upgrade.

ShoreTel has found a niche in the Telecom market doing what very few competitors have done. ShoreTel has designed a scalable single image system which can be installed for companies with as few as 3 people, to as many as 10,000.

Avaya is caught between a rock and a hard place. They can not provide that level of redundant functionality on the IP Office - doing that would risk cannibalizing CM sales.

The IP Office 500 is capable of growing to 700 ports, and could very easily be made redundant - Avaya has set a 272 port and non redundant product decision so as not to effect sales of CM product. Unfortunately, that decision on the IP Office side will cause dealers to move toward products like ShoreTel.

The Telecom market is going through a paradigm shift right now. Hopefully Avaya, and their new owner TPG can navigate through these waters and keep their product lines current and competitive while maintaining market share and profitability. Failing to do so will allow nimble niche players like ShoreTel to steal market share. If Avaya finds a new competitive footing quickly though they could hurt ShoreTel's prospects.

It will be interesting to see what happens. And to find out how Avaya reacts we'll need to wait to see what TPG's new game plan will be.

And we speak of the indurtsy like there are only 2 products out there - ShoreTel and Avaya.

If Avaya is not careful Microsoft and Cisco could do a lot more damage then ShoreTel.

 

[GSmitherman]

Some people on this site are so blinded by Avaya that they can not read. Never did I say they were bought out by a competitor. I only stated they were bought out.
Since you have no experience with the ShoreTel product, I feel it is useless to discuss this any further. We can agree to disagree.

To answer aarenot, yes I have experience implementng Avaya systems from as small as the Partner to as big as Definity G3, 8400 and 8700's. My ACS is in the IP Office. I stopped the ACE certification when I changed companies and chose to concentrate on Shortel.

 

[tech2233]

Not sure who you are talking about, but I am Avaya ACS certified and ShoreTel trained as well.

 

[aarenot]

G,
I do respect your credentials within the telecom industry, as you have solid experience with the industries undisputed heavyweight champ(Avaya), and also with this new good little puncher Shoretel. I also have worked for an Avaya BP which was the leading IPO implementor in my state, then for the 20th largest Avaya BP, and Shoretels leading distributor for which I worked on multiple shoretel, IPO, legend, magix, Partner of all flavors, One-x, CM. I also have 15 years in the industry doing everything from key to PBX, toshiba, ESI, Nitsuko, Tadiran, a few others, and dozens of VM platforms.
I do not however think much of any tech I have worked with that does not have their base of experience established with one of the traditional phone system providors like Avaya prior to moving to shoretel. This may not reflect the knowledge level of all shoretel techs, but my experience is if they are shoretel first, and only guys they lack true industry knowledge, and experience. most were just data hacks with no idea about voice, call flows, features, VM structures, IVR, or how to develope an application of the technology designed for the integration into the customers business model in order to enhance, and contribute to their processes, and their bottom line.
You seem to know your arse from a hole in the ground when it comes to the industry which I cannot say for any of the shoretel techs I have met, most needed help punching down the whip for the CO's, and could not even tell me which pairs would be which lines, so I had to figure it out myself. I may be too judgemental, but if you cannot connect up the trunks to the system, go home, and let a real tech do the job. I don't mean you have to run all the station cables, but at least know how to use a punch tool.
Sorry to you shoretel guys who know what a 110 blade, or cross connect is, but I found it embarassing to work with these guys especially since they made no effort to learn it by the time they were as highly certified with shoretel as you can get.

Did you work in the twins?

 

[GSmitherman]

Not you tech. It seems like there are Avaya people who have no ShoreTel experience and want to post on here. I don't post on the Nortel site because I have no experience with that product. I try to only speak on products that I have hands on experience with.

 

[aarenot]

I am no shoretel expert, but have some knowledge, and experience, not so much as tech , or G. On the IPO, I am probably more current if not more experienced than most who do other systems as the main system they support at least. I do not consider certifications, training courses, etc. as proof of anything except attendance, look at their experience, or on here look at their posts, and votes recieved.

 

[ITfromZX81]

Hi Guys,

I have been using Avaya IPO for a few years now. I am very familiar with the system and have been on a 5-day hands on course on implementing it

I'm at a new job and they are considering going to a VOIP system. A local company has recommended a Shoretel system. It will be connected to a main office and 2 or 3(and eventually maybe more) branch offices along with softphone users(laptops) and home users.

I really like the IPO system because of the huge amount of options regarding shortcodes, etc. - I'm wondering if this is the case with the Shoretel systems = for example, can you program them to automatically dial out of the nearest local office phone switch for a call to avoid long distance charges(you can do this with IPO).

I guess what I want is a breakdown of the differences between what an Avaya IPO and a ShoreTel sytem can do and what if any limitations there are with the ShoreTel system.

I see from this forum that there are not alot of posts - the indication is that people are happy with the system - however, I also want to make sure that the system has enough features that we don't need to switch to something else down the road. I also want to make sure there are enough people out there using the system so that we can all help each other out on tektips(grin).

Thank you for your thoughts...

 

[jneiberger]

I seem to recall from the demos we saw that this is extremely easy with Shoretel, but I'm sure someone who actually knows what they're talking about will chime in soon.

 

[aarenot]

ITfromZX81,
First question. Is your entire network infrastructure current including QOS, and I would suggest POE as well if going with shoretel.
After that, get quotes from high quality vendors, and talk with them about what features you will, or may use down the road. The IPO does have a richer feature set, but in all reality, if you are not going to use them, it does not matter anyway.
More important than the system is the tech team implementing it, so watch that more closely for sure. Get a recomended tech team itself, beyond just the vendor.

 

[GSmitherman]

IT,

If you are experienced with IP Office you will have no problem with ShoreTel. The one thing IP Office does have over ShoreTel is the flexibility of programming with short codes. I haven't ran into anything a customer needed that ShoreTel could not provide.
ShoreTel can route calls similar to IP Office. We have alot of customers utilizing the trunks of other systems to avoid long distance charges.
I have said numerous times I like both systems. If all things are equal, I like ShoreTel more.

 

[ITfromZX81]

Hi Gsmitherman,

Do you mean that you cannot program with shortcodes at all with a ShoreTel system or that it is more limited? I really like the shortcode abilities of IPO.

Thanks,

 

[aarenot]

Shot codes are not an option on shoretel, as well as voice mail costs per individual mailbox on ST, and VMPRO can do more things than ST VM. For instance VMPRO can page a user/group on overhead/phone/both at once paging to alert a user/group to a call, ring overhead paging, access paging from offsite, record/delayed paging to avoid feedback loops. It can alert/ring with group/user/call flow specific ring tones, or individual announcements. Those are just a few simple things I do not think the shoreel voicemail can do, but I do frequently with IPO/VMPRO. You may not have any use for these things to name a few.

 

[GSmitherman]

IT,

ShoreTel does not use short codes. The programming of the ShoreTel is still pretty flexible. You could post what features you need, and I can tell you if the ShoreTel can do it.
The thing I like about ShoreTel is they are very good at implementing features with new releases. Paging overhead and phones at the same time should be out soon. When ShoreTel new releases go GA they do not have the issues like Avaya does when it releases a new version.
I agree with you, I like the flexibility of using Short Codes. I also agree with Aarenot, the most important thing is the team implementing the system. Do your homework and call their customers. We encourage our potential customers to call any of our current customers. We provide a list of all the customers not just who we want them to call.

 

[aarenot]

G,
I would take the referal thing a step farther than just customer referals, but to even ask for customer referals for the project manager, and the programmer who will implement your system.
A top notch project manager, and a top notch lead programmer/implementor/lead tech will have customer referal letters that have been written to their employer specifically mentioning the people who worked on their implementation. I am sure that you have some of those GS, and anyone who has not is probably not top notch in my experience, so get some referals of that nature before you buy. If a sales guy is given that criteria, he will get the implementation team to forward some emails, or letters to the customer, and commit a team that has referals, if they want the sale.
If they do not forward these, and commit the referred team, it is because they do not have that kind of top notch team, find another vendor.

 

[GSmitherman]

Once again I agree with Aarenot.

 

[ITfromZX81]

Okay, so say I want to do the following things:

1. Restrict long distance calling on one specific phone but allow toll free and local calls and 911.

2. The call rerouting to a local branch which is not long distance - how do you do that without shortcodes? Do you create tables in the Shoretel system to identify where to route specific prefixes?

3. Flexible and Configurable Auto Attendant voicemail systems - in IPO this is done with Voicemail Pro and a program which is very drag and drop - is there something similar with ShoreTel?

Thanks guys. I still haven't made my mind up yet - all yoru input is greatly appreciated.

 

[aarenot]

Number 1, and 2 are simple, and I doubt there is any system in the world made in the past 20 years that could nto do these.

3. VMPRO for ease of, and versatility of configuration is hard to compete with. Considering you already know how to use the VMPRO at the basic level you probably know this. Ask your vendor for a look at the ST VM interface, and decide for yourself. I could give my opinion, and that is the vmpro IS VERY HARD TO BEAT IN THE INDUSTRY WIDE SENSE FOR ITS PRICE.

 

[GSmitherman]

IT,

Everything you have asked about, ShoreTel can do. Before you purchase any system, have the company selling the system give you a product demo. Have the company show you how easy it is to administer the system. I think once you have seen the demo and checked to make sure you have the right company installing the system, you will be happy. Either system should be able to do what you need.